Making qualitative research accessible and acceptable in the scientific management arena: a life-world perspective

Western organizational culture, in part founded on the scientific management (Taylorist) techniques employed by Henry Ford, tends to emphasize the capture and control of explicit forms of knowledge, and technological advancement has encouraged this tendency. This is apparent within hegemonic business practices (e.g. ITIL IT Service Management processes) which emphasize quantitative data collection. In contrast, managers are often frustrated by an inability to take control of tacit forms of knowledge, embodied within the worker and acknowledged as important for organizational success, yet resistant to effective quantitative data collection. As a business school researcher I was faced with the challenge of deciding upon a research method that would enable my interpretations to be both credible within the academic community and accessible and acceptable within the IT Service Management practitioner community. By close observation of specific work activity as it is experienced by the IT support worker, recording as much data as possible relating to the cerebral and sensory experience of the worker, the research attempts to draw diagrammatic patterns that provide some clarity for managers over the forms of knowledge that are used by a worker or team. The paper reflexively considers this qualitative research from the different life-world perspectives of the researcher-perceived academic and practitioner recipients of the research, seeking credibility, accessibility and acceptability across these life-worlds whilst maintaining researcher integrity

Participatory online environmental education at the Open University UK

The role of education in helping our societies put sustainability into practice is crucial. The motivation, awareness and empowerment, necessary for citizens to understand the concept and take part in its operationalisation, ought to emerge from environmental education, since we might encounter some difficulty when trying to teach, or impose these notions in a theoretical way. In developing environmental courses, we therefore ought to progressively replace pedagogical approaches based on (relatively 'authoritarian') transfers of information with more interactive and collaborative learning processes: citizens' participation can start with the creation of communities of learners. This paper describes the construction of two web courses: a first level teaching module on environmental systems and a third level interdisciplinary environmental course, both developed at the Open University, specialised in distance and open learning. The themes of the course include participatory processes in decision-making, the perception and representation of environmental systems, alternative leadership, biodiversity, climate change and integrated water management, environmental action and governance. The concepts focused on include sustainability, complexity, uncertainty, globalisation and 'systemic problem solving'. In both courses, the overall pedagogical process is based on the notion of environmental governance. This means that the web has been chosen as a learning platform, because - it provides various types of up to date information as well as archives, - it allows various types of users to communicate between different countries, and also - it encourages collaborative and interactive learning. This paper describes the experience of the author in creating web environmental courses at the Open University. Components of the courses such as interactive activities are discussed, as well as the pedagogical focus progressively shifted towards more participatory processes of learning

E-Learning for Teachers and Trainers : Innovative Practices, Skills and Competences

Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.Final Published versio

Gender and innovation processes in rice-based systems

This GRiSP report is based on the perspectives of women and men from three rice-growing villages in the Nueva Ecija province of the Philippines

Sustainable energy for whom? Governing pro-poor, low-carbon pathways to development: lessons from solar PV in Kenya

Using a combination of insights from innovation studies, sociotechnical transitions theory and the STEPS pathways approach, this paper analyses the evolution of the Kenyan photovoltaics (PV) market. Considered by many to be an exemplar of private sector led development, the Kenyan PV market has witnessed the adoption of more than 300,000 solar home systems and over 100,000 solar portable lights. The notion of an entrepreneurially driven unsubsidised solar market has proved to be a powerful narrative amongst development actors who, paradoxically, have provided millions of dollars of funding to encourage the market’s development. We argue that this donor support has been critical to the success of the market, but not simply by helping to create an enabling environment in which entrepreneurs can flourish. Donor assistance has been critical in supporting a range of actors to build the elements of a PV innovation system by providing active protection for experimentation, network-building, and the construction of shared visions amongst actors throughout supply chains and amongst users.This analysis gives important clues for designing climate and development policies, with implications for the governance of energy access pathways that are inclusive of poor and marginalised groups in low income countries